Some around the world waited with baited breath to see if they would at last announce the killer 3D Mario or Zelda title that this system is crying out for. So did they deliver on this? Well the answer is both yes and no but we will get to that shortly.

This "announcement" and I call it this in the loosest possible terms began with a Mr Iwata (above left) explaining to everyone about the miiverse. Now it was very informative but nothing new was even mentioned (well aside from the seemingly pointless miiverse app for smartphones) and all he did was outline the features of it focussing on the communication aspect (which sounds awful) and he also highlighted some of the amazing artwork people have drawn on it. While this is a nice touch to the people who drew it, does anyone else really care? And if they do care about the miiverse it's very likely they already know all about all of the features it contains and it's so called 'amazing'artwork. Iwata took the time to explain what a green check mark next to someones mii is at great length instead of just saying its someone who works in games industry. He also spoke about and showed off videos of 2 previously announced games, The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2, both of which were already announced and neither of which were given a release date, so we are about half way through this announcement and nothing had yet been announced. In what way does that make sense?Anyway onto to the announcements!

A 3d Mario title is in development! Yes! What's it called? when is it coming? Show us a trailer, a screenshot, anything! It will be playable at e3. Oh OK, so this is actually an announcement of what you are going to have on show at E3? While this is big news that the Mario game is coming don't expect it to hit until very late 2013, big mistake Ninty. With the rumours of new consoles from Sony and Microsoft gathering pace every day and looking likely to be gearing up for a launch around then, will anyone still be interested in the Wii U?

Mario Kart is coming to Wii u! Again not an announcement this is expected on every Nintendo console. And again the only thing confirmed about it is that it will be playable at E3. And it seems to be becoming clear that Nintendo’s games department seems to be about a year behind on everything. Nintendo really look as if they have made a big mistake at the moment. Picture this my friends Nintendo spend an extra year working on the console (and give it a sensible name). Release it after summer this year in time for Xmas with a launch line up (as these games will now be ready) consisting of a 3D Mario title, Mario Kart Wii U, Super Smash Bros Wii U and Zelda Wii Uup and you won't be able to make them fast enough. But sadly that didn't happen.

A new Yoshi game was announced, it will be the first since Yoshi’s Story (released in 1998 for the N64), to feature Yoshi as the main playable character. They showed off some gameplay footage of Yoshi in a side scrolling 2D platformer rendered in 3D which looked nice but nothing new there and again no release date.

They are working on a new Zelda title for Wii U!No title, no date, no screens, nothing. We all guessed they were working on it anyway so this isn't news, other than that they very vaguely said "it's going to take a while" so don't expect it this year. Now there were a couple of interesting points raised while they were talking about Zelda namely "changing the fundamentals of Zelda" which they listed as playing through dungeons in a specific order and playing by yourself. Wait they said changing these! Stop the buses! Now changing the linear format of the dungeons is all well and good, more than likely it will be a proper open world Zelda game! Wow! That will be amazing! Maybe they will even work in exp and leveling and such RPG staples. But wait what was the other thing they just threw in there nonchalantly?

They are going to change that you play alone. What does this mean? Well your looking at the announcement of multiplayer for the next Zelda game folks! What form will it take? Well nothing announced so far on that front but my money is on either MMORPG style where you can interact with others or choose to go it alone or (and this seems more likely) some kind of co-op mechanic. Either way Zelda does not need multiplayer and Ninty should retract this ASAP before people start to go crazy! So expect to hear nothing more about it till E3.

"But while your waiting why not go back and play Zelda wind waker hd" that's right instead of focussing on getting Zelda Wii U out the door, some of the team has been reworking old Zelda titles and upgrading the graphics. Now they only one which was confirmed was The Wind Waker but it was said that they are working on more. They showed off some concept HD art of it and it did look very nice. There was more chat about how the miiverse will improve this experience. Yeah, OK Mr Iwata we get it you love the miiverse! Again no release date but don't imagine it should take them too long to get it out. GameCube titles coming to Wii U is a big bonus but its not exactly the killer app it needs at this point.

Also announced was......more shovelware! I'm not even going into these as I don't count them as actual games.

Mr Iwata also took the time to tell us that Altus and Shin Megami Tensei are colaberating on a game and showed off a short teaser video for it announcing Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Nothing else about this was detailed but expect more at E3!

Finally he introduced one more game trailer. And this time it is an actual trailer with actual game play! The game is being developed by Monolithsoft (developers of Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii) and is simply titled with a teasing X.However do expect this title to change to Xenoblade something in the next few months (probably at E3!).It is a futuristic RPG set in a lush Final Fantasy XI style open environment. Several different characters were shown (so expect customisation) battling huge monsters. At this point I was thinking this looks like a Final Fantasy game. But then one character ran up to a mech climbed inside and blasted off skyward! Mind blown! Footage was then shown of this mech battling even bigger monsters and in fact transforming from a walking mech into a car. Hang on haven't we seen that before? I can hear the good folks over at Hasbro shuffling paper as I type Again no date so expect more at E3.

While X di look great and everything if this is the best Ninty has to offer at this point, (an announcement with no real announcements in it is not something to boast about Nintendo) then Sony and Microsoft have nothing to worry about from Nintendo at this point. They are essentially just treading water in the baby pool while the big boys are climbing to the highest diving platform. When they hit Nintendo will be blown out of the water and I would speculate go the same way as Sega. Don't get me wrong I love Nintendo (I have owned every one of their consoles up to this point) and the Zelda and Mario games are some of my favourites of all time but they have a very small window in which to hook the consumer and they are largely failing to capitalize on it.